The everyday blog of Richard Bartle.
8:25am on Wednesday, 23rd March, 2005:
Outburst
Sometimes when you park your car in a public car park, you have to park it slightly out of the box because the adjacent car has encroached into your space. Then, when you come back from wherever you went, you find that the adjacent car has gone and now you look like you're the bad parker.
I gave my last EE314 lecture of the year yesterday. The lecturer who has the room before me always, always overruns. Lectures are supposed to last 50 minutes, but hers never finish at 11:50 like they're supposed to. The earliest she's ever finished is 11:55, and most times it's more like 11:59. My students are so used to it that they turn up late themselves now. As a result, my 50-minute lecture overruns too, ending at more like 13:00 than 12:50. A passing observer would think I was the guilty party, not the person who lectured before me.
Yesterday, she didn't emerge until 12:06.
When she first did it, she apologised, and I accepted. After 3 or 4 of these, she apologised and I replied "yes, I know, you always apologise". She didn't get the message, though, and breezily persisted in running late. Yesterday, she came out full of smiles, and I confronted her. "You do know your lecture is supposed to finish at 10 to 12, don't you?". "Yes", she replied, striding away. Marvellous. She knows she's overrunning, but she doesn't care.
The room next door is empty all this time. I could teach in there instead, except I need a projector for my Powerpoint slides. The squatter woman doesn't use a computer, so she could have that room instead. Then, I wouldn't care if she talked for one, two, three hours, or all day.
I have some revision lectures next month. If she doesn't come out before 12:00 for any of them, I'm going to go in. It may be unfair on her students to interrupt like this, but it's unfair on mine not to.
Referenced by Revision.
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Copyright © 2005 Richard Bartle (richard@mud.co.uk).